Find the best fish stores specializing in coral frags, colonies, and reef-building supplies across the United States. Browse 617 stores in 42 states with ratings, hours, and directions.
Buying coral is not like buying fish. You are purchasing a living colony that took months or years to grow, ships in a tiny bag of water, and can bleach within 48 hours if your parameters are off. The stakes are higher, the prices are steeper, and the difference between a gorgeous frag and an expensive piece of dead skeleton often comes down to where you bought it. A dedicated coral store or reef shop gives you something no online vendor can: the ability to see a piece polyped up under real lighting, inspect the base for pests, and talk to someone who fragged it off their own mother colony two months ago.
A serious coral shop runs dedicated frag systems, separate from the fish tanks, with controlled flow, dosing pumps maintaining calcium at 420 ppm and alkalinity between 8 and 9 dKH, and high-output lighting like Ecotech Radion or Kessil A500X fixtures. The water is crystal clear because they are running carbon, GFO, and protein skimming aggressively to keep phosphates under 0.05 ppm. Frags sit on egg crate racks organized by light requirements: zoanthids and mushrooms on the lower shelves, LPS like torches and hammers in the middle, and SPS (Acropora, Montipora, Stylophora) up top under full blast. Every piece should have a label showing the name, price, and ideally how long it has been in the system. A coral that has been growing in the store for three or more weeks is a much safer purchase than something that arrived in a shipping box yesterday. Shops that flip coral straight from the box to the sales rack are gambling with your money.
The single biggest risk of adding new coral is introducing pests into your established system. Acropora eating flatworms, montipora eating nudibranchs, red bugs, and Aiptasia hitchhikers have destroyed entire reef tanks. A trustworthy coral store dips every incoming piece in CoralRx, Bayer insecticide (the roach spray, diluted properly), or Revive before it touches their frag system. Ask to see the dipping process or at minimum ask what they use and how long pieces soak. When you bring coral home, dip it again yourself, even if the store already did. Use a magnifying glass or jeweler's loupe to inspect the base, skeleton, and between polyps for anything moving. Flatworms are nearly transparent and easy to miss. Red bugs look like tiny orange specks on Acropora tissue. One missed pest can multiply into thousands within weeks, and by the time you notice tissue recession, the damage is extensive. Prevention is not optional in this hobby. It is the entire strategy.
Coral pricing confuses newcomers because a one-inch frag of a high-end Acropora can cost more than a five-inch colony of a common toadstool leather. The price reflects rarity, growth rate, coloration under specific lighting, and demand in the collector market. Named corals like Walt Disney Acropora, Jason Fox Homewrecker, or World Wide Corals Bounce mushrooms carry premium prices because they trace back to documented mother colonies with proven color genetics. A good coral shop will explain this honestly. They will also tell you that a $30 zoanthid frag will give you just as much enjoyment as a $300 Acropora if your tank is not mature enough for SPS. Responsible shops steer new reefers toward hardy species first (Kenya tree, xenia, green star polyps, Duncan coral) and let you build up to the demanding stuff as your husbandry and equipment catch up to your ambitions.